What am I working on? UGH. <–captures mood best. I’ve been banging my head against this subplot story and getting nowhere (or going backwards…). I did some extensive freewriting today to figure out what the heck is going wrong, and I’m still not quite sure? I’ve plotted out a basic storyline, pulling back from the rambling method I thought might work last week, to see if having some points to aim for will help. It’s so strange, because it’s not like the character doesn’t have a clear point of view, or even that she doesn’t have a clear purpose, but I think I was maybe mixing in a few too many OTHER personal challenges, which might be confusing the point. Therefore: UGH.
I’m also trying to install some good writing-related habits to do daily. I’m probably biting off more than I can chew, but we’re starting here with a couple I know would be helpful. May ease in with just one per day, then up it next week to two, etc., until they’re building off each other…
What’s inspiring me this week? Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities is amazing. It’s very non-traditional, plot-wise (i.e., IS there a plot? Not sure…), but it’s also really getting my brain firing on what fiction can do (beyond just “it’s TV with words”!). I’m really enjoying it and its dreaminess and creativity. Some of these cities are just…wow. I want whole novels set in them. But even just a taste is, as Thing 1 would say, *chef’s kiss*!
Andy and I also just watched We Cloned Tyrone, which was awesome. We went through an old-school blaxploitation film kick a few years (*cough decade cough*) ago, and watched a bunch of the old classics, and this movie perfectly captures that seventies vintage vibe while also being very modern (oh, and funny, to boot!). It’s a great take on the sci-fi cloning/evil organization trope, but has a wonderful, thought-provoking rationale behind it that really makes your skin crawl. We had a lot of fun, and the music is fantastic.
My brain has hooked onto the idea of scheduling my time more deliberately using a task manager app, but I’m still waffling on whether or not it’d actually be helpful or just another distraction to keep the day-to-day things from getting done. I DO need some kind of method for breaking up my day in a workplace headspace, just so that all the tasks that need to be done don’t get pushed to the end of the day and then to the end of the next day and the end of the next… You get it. It’s also a case of “work expands to fill the time.” When you’re running your own schedule, it can be so easy to feel like there’s plenty of “time” to do things, but of course, other tasks pop up and other interruptions get in the way, and before you know it, the day’s over, and you haven’t even done what you wanted to do. I’m squarely there, so figuring out how to better conceptualize both tasks and available time might be helpful…
What’s challenging me this week? Oh, you mean, BESIDES THE PROJECT? Nope, it’s pretty much just the project being stubborn as heck for reasons as yet not understood. Wee. I love it when a story completely brick-walls me for no good reason. It’s incredibly frustrating. How to solve this? I…don’t know. So there’ll be lots of freewriting and testing out angles and seeing if something will unlock this thing and get the ball rolling again…